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66 Years Later, a Bronze Star

By Corey Kilgannon October 14, 2010 12:57 pmOctober 14, 2010 12:57 pm

Photographs by Uli Seit for The New York TimesGeorge Vujnovich at home in Jackson Heights, Queens. On Sunday, he is to receive a Bronze Star for his role in a daring rescue of more than 500 Allied forces airmen during World War II.

For more than 50 years, George Vujnovich was a mild-mannered salesman working away at his small business in Queens and living a quiet life on a quiet block in Jackson Heights. He never spoke, even to his closest friends, about his secret role organizing one of the greatest rescue missions of World War II.

“There was a strict rule in the O.S.S. and not talk about these things — they teach you to compartmentalize them and lock them away,” Mr. Vujnovich said.

The O.S.S. was the Office of Strategic Services — a precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency. And what Mr. Vujnovich kept locked away all these years was his key role as the operations officer for Operation Halyard, a daring rescue of more than 500 Allied forces airmen during World War II in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia.

Mr. Vujnovich’s efforts went unrecognized because the operation was kept secret by the United States military until a few years ago. But now, 66 years after that summer of 1944, he will receive the Bronze Star for his service, in a ceremony on Sunday afternoon at the Cathedral of St. Sava, a Serbian Orthodox church on West 26th Street in Manhattan.

“Better now than never,” Mr. Vujnovich, 95, said on Wednesday at his home on 87th Street in Jackson Heights. He adjusted himself on the couch and with a still-clear mind and a sharp memory, he recounted how he trained agents to infiltrate the Nazi-occupied region and organize an airlift of 512 downed airmen, from a hastily cleared runway on a mountaintop.

Mr. Vujnovich on a visit home in 1943.

The airmen had been sheltered from the Nazis for months in farmhouses, with the help of Draza Mihailovic, the Yugoslav guerrilla leader who was a political enemy with Josip Broz Tito, the Communist leader of the partisans in Yugoslavia. The United States government’s support for Tito over Mihailovic complicated the rescue mission and prevented it from being publicized afterward, he said.

“His story was kept behind the scenes for many years because of the politics of the time, and the divisiveness within Yugoslavia,” said Representative Joseph Crowley, whose district includes Jackson Heights and who petitioned the Army in July to award Mr. Vujnovich the Bronze Star.

“It’s a story that has everything: espionage, intrigue, Roosevelt, Tito, Churchill, Stalin,” Mr. Crowley said. “To me it’s just amazing: it has cloak-and-dagger, and the hush-hush of the O.S.S.”

Mr. Vujnovich may well be last living rescuer from Operation Halyard, said Lt. Col. Steven Oluic of the United States Army, who helped research and prepare the application for Mr. Vujnovich’s award.

Mr. Vujnovich was born to Serbian immigrant parents in 1915 in a Serbian section of Pittsburgh, and in the mid-1930s he traveled to Belgrade to study. After experiencing the bombing of Belgrade by the Germans in April 1941, he and his future wife, Mirjana, fled, and traveled from Budapest to Turkey to Jerusalem, and around Africa, often barely escaping German forces. Mr. Vujnovich joined the Army and quickly became a second lieutenant, and was then asked to join the O.S.S. He was flown to Virginia and told he would be picked up on a specific street to be taken to a secret training academy known as The Farm.

“They told me to stand on a certain corner and that I’d be picked up in a car with darkened windows and taken to The Farm,” he said. “They told me to put a flower in my lapel and tuck a newspaper under my left arm.”

Mr. Vujnovich was stationed in Bari, Italy. Mirjana stayed in Washington as a secretary at the Yugoslav Embassy, where she was privy to communications from Yugoslavia to United States officials claiming that there were more than 100 American airmen trapped there. Mirjana wrote to her husband. He contacted Air Force officials and began planning a rescue mission.

The trapped airmen had been shot down while on bombing runs to the Romanian oil fields that supplied the Germans. Many airmen abandoned their planes and parachuted into a Nazi-occupied area in what is now Serbia and were shepherded to a mountainous, wooded region — and a measure of safety — by the forces of General Mihailovich.

Washington officials prevented Mr. Vujnovich himself from from going in as an agent, but he began recruiting and training Serbian-speaking agents to blend in, after parachuting into the region where they would help organize the airlift rescue out.

“I taught these agents they had to take all the tags off their clothing,” he said. “They were carrying Camel and Lucky Strikes cigarettes, and holding U.S. currency. I told them to get rid of it. I had to show them how to tie their shoes and tuck the laces in, like the Serbs did, and how to eat like the Serbs, pushing the food onto their fork with the knife.”

The men helped clear a runway and helped guide in the C-47 transport planes sent in to pick up the stranded airmen.

After the war, the Tito regime tried General Mihailovich on charges of treason and executed him in 1946, despite protests from many of the airmen who said General Mihailovich had saved them from the Nazis. President Harry S. Truman posthumously awarded him the Legion of Merit medal, which was not delivered until 2005, when Mr. Vujnovich and other veterans presented it to the general’s daughter, Gordana Mihailovich. A 2007 book by Gregory A. Freeman, “The Forgotten 500,” helped publicize the mission.

The commotion over his World War II service has brightened his life, Mr. Vujnovich said. A few years back, he traveled to Belgrade with others veterans for a commemoration of Operation Halyard. He has lived all these years in the house he bought in 1950 for $17,000. Mirjana died eight years ago, and the days pass quietly in the living room filled with historical books.

“It’s not something I felt the need to talk about, after the war,” he said. “What was frustrating was that Mihailovich never got credit, because he saved so many American lives.”

Well, at least this quiet, unassuming WWII vet lived long enough to finally receive the Bronze Star, unlike numerous other service men who got their’s posthumously. Alas, It’s too bad his wife of so many years isn’t here to share the pride he must be feeling at this point in his life.
We salute your valiant service to our country, Lt. Vujnovich.

I am happy for this deserving gentleman who lives to see the day his recognition has arrived. I am too, also persueing for my Great Uncle Pvt. 1st Class Cornelius Conway U.S. Army Infantry, ” World War I ” , killed in action November 3, 1918 the Congretional Medal of Honor.
He was killed at the Muesse Argonne and is buried at the Muesse Argonne American Cemetary outside of Verdun France. This is the largest U.S. cemetary in all of Europe.
The story as I know it was he attempted to save the platoon from machine gun fire from a ridge. He charged up the hill took out one machine gun nest waved up the platoon as he charged at the second machine gun taking out this also with two gernades. When the platoon took and secured the ridge, a sniper and mortar shell hit and mangeled Pvt. 1st Class Cornelius Conway who died in route to rear hospital support.
Pvt. 1st Class Cornelius Conway, my Great Uncle I shall not forget and ask the U.S. Government to please forward his medals for we, “my family” never received them.
Thank you, and “God Bless America.”//www.CaptainDemocracy.wordpress.com

Thank you very much for this lovely tribute to George Vujnovich. I know him personally and am not only impressed with his military career, but with him as a man. He was and is a man of true character – a gentle, humble soul, who did great and important things in his life. What pleases me most is that this well-deserved award is being bestowed upon him while he is still living. Sincerely, Aleksandra Rebic

I’ve known the story and the men of OPERATION HALYARD from the time I was seven years old, as my father published the day to day diary of Capt. Nick Lalich in his AMERICAN SERB LIFE magazine of 1948 in several monthly installments. Each man, like George, was a real, live, TRUE American hero. Unfortunately, VERY FEW other Americans were aware of this unbelievable rescue, but the U.S. rescued airmen were, and year after year, sought to have this story told, all to no avail.

Thankfully, George is finally being recognized by our government. It’s an honor way past due, but most certainly welcomed.

Last year, George Vujnovich was placed in the FIRST HALL OF FAME for the Ambridge Area High School in Ambridge, PA, from whence he graduated for his Leadership & Heroism.

Last month, +Capt. George Musulin was inducted into the Cambria County War Memorial Museum in Johnstown, PA, his Hometown, along with +U.S. Congressman John Murtha.

On Dec. 7, 2008, Arthur (Jibby) Jibilian -the radioman of the mission, was recognized by 300 members of the Ohio National Guard, two U.S. Congresspeople, and 2 Ohio State Senators.

For all these years, the 513 U.S. rescued airmen tried to defend the name of General Draza Mihailovich and thank him and the Serbian Chetniks and their families for saving their lives, letting them become husbands, fathers and grandfathers. Slowly the truth is coming forward.

Congratulations to a TRUE gentleman, George Vujnovich, tireless defender of the truth. I was present at an important meeting in Washington, DC that George also attended. He had taken a taxi from his home in NYC to the train station, despite being in a wheelchair, despite being over 90 years old! Once he arrived in Washington, he had to again take a taxi to the Rayburn Building, where he wheeled himself in his wheelchair into the room. Everyone cheered……

The warmest, heartiest CONGRATIULATIONS once again to one of the finest, bravest, and most courageous man I’ve had the pleasure of knowing all these many years!

Your valiant duty will go unforgotten. And thank you for your honourable mention of Draza Mihailovich…a true, honourable soldier and leader who not only saved many US lives, but Serbians and Russians as well!

Serbian people have considered themselves staunch allies and friends of America for a long, long time. Vujnovic mentions how Serbian people risked their lives and shared their last piece of bread with the American pilots. Thank you, America, for bombing us 1999 for 78 days days and for saturating the Serbian soil with depleted uranium which has caused and will continue to cause extraordinarily high cancer rates throughout Serbia. And thank you for systematically and relentlessly vilifying the Serbs for the past 20 years and for continuing to do so until this day. For you, America, Serbs are only a genocidal people, rapists, mass murderers and war criminals.

Congratulations on your excellent achievement and this recent recognition. The Serbian community is very proud of you and the other honorable soldiers like you. God bless the late Mrs. Vujnovich for her selfless contributions, as well.

Congrats to Corey Kilgannon for writing this riveting article on a true hero – George Vujnovich.

Years ago, I had the pleasure and honour of meeting one of those airmen rescued by Lt. Vujnovich, Major Richard Felman.

Major Felman never forgot the great debt owed to the Serbian Chetnik guerillas and General Mihailovich who worked selflessly with the OSS operators to mount what was probably the most daring rescue in World War II.

Maj. Felman also returned with many American airmen to the small Serbian village of Pranjani where the makeshift airfield was built, to commemorate and remember the Serbs who sheltered and defended them from the Nazis.

Maj. Felman, who passed away in 1999, wrote in his memoirs that on that trip, he walked to a small chapel near the field of rescue and prayed.

“It was their chapel. We both knelt in humble prayer and gave thanks. Though separated by language, country and religion, the brotherhood of man was never more in meaningful evidence.”

Tomorrow’s service to honour Lt. Vujnovich with the Bronze Star also honours and remembers the noble sacrifice of the Serbian Chetniks, Mihailovich and the other American OSS operators who risked their lives for more than 500 of their brothers in arms.

Why did it take so long?
Maybe because he was a supporter of chetniks, serbian nationalist, who where nazi collaborators responsible for atrocities committed against Yugoslav people, including serbs, true heroes, such as Dr. Mladen Stojanovic.
They did help to save our boys at that time, but they also killed, or traded with nazis, many other allies who parachuted over Yugoslavia, especially if they were unable to get some sort of a ransom for them.

Not a single word about terrible atrocities Mihailovich chetniks did in WW2. Internet is full of images depicting Mihalovich chetniks having fun with nazi’s, hunting partisans – real liberators from nazi’s.
This story is misleading.

It’s wonderful that Vujnovich was finally honored for his contribution to the American cause in WWII. Veterans’ numbers are slowly dwindling and time is running out to pay them tribute. I was reading the other day that there are groups of WWII veterans who wish to visit memorial sites, like the one in DC, but are kept from fulfilling their desire due to issues of funding. In other words, they have no money to realize their final wish. This was appalling to me, so I did some research on the subject and I found some really wonderful foundations out there trying to assist our veterans. One of the groups I discovered was called the Greatest Generations Foundation. They actively seek funding to send WWII veterans overseas to international memorials and I think they’re building a special institute to promote the preservation of WWII memories. Honoring our veterans should be a priority in this day and age and I commend New York City and all the groups out there trying to improve our veteran’s last days.

For anyone who would like to sort through the “Mihailovich” and “Chetniks” controversy as evidenced in the above comments, there’s two websites I would like to recommend: One is //www.generalmihailovich.com and the other is //www.babamim.com. Hopefully, you will find these helpful.

From the two negative posts here, one can only conclude that they must be from people who hated the Serbs and the Serbian Chetniks. As the late Maj. Richard Felman told me, the only people who hate Serbs and Chetniks are Communists and Nazis.

And when you really scratch beneath the surface of the ones who post hate here, that’s what you invariably find they are – Communists or Nazis.

My father was a bombardier on a B17 in the 15th Army Air Corps based in Foggia at Amendela in WWII and participated in this rescue. I still have pictures of him dressed in the Serbian peasant garb he was issued before the air-drop. As I recall he was urged to volunteer for this operation because of his experience as an Eagle Scout.

What astonishes me is the fact that I hadn’t heard about this before. I always knew he had participated but did not know even that the operation had a name until I stumbled on this and a few other articles via youtube all quite by accident. What gauls me is an American media that for no good reason ever broke this story. Not CNN, not ABC, not CBS.

As the son of an American soldier who was part of this operation, I scold the media for not doing a story on it that made its way to mainstream American families whose fathers and grandfathers particpated in this particular rescue. Certainly in 2005 when they erected a monument in Yugoslavia, couldn’t the big media companies find a story on this spectacular operation rather than tell us the latest on Madonna’s toenail polish or Michael Jackson’s latest escapades with children?

I’d also like to add that I think my father deserves a posthumous bronze star for his participation and I plan to do something about it. I think it’s really time for the US Government to fess up to the real story of Yugoslavia of which this is a most illuminating detail.

James Kirk

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